Jeff -

I don't think the consensus is that its impossible to turn a BCS team around - its the mid-majors most (that I see) are moaning about [EDIT- I missed the connecting thread below].  And I believe its been proven a false consensus (take a look at McNeese St in Rupp - your own world to see the proof in the recent pudding).

First and last - BCS teams always have a money advantage that gives a huge boost.  Easier to recruit with a C at a BCS school than a C mid-major (and that is probably a generous starting prestige really).

But glad to have you in Rupp.  It is sad how many vacancies, even at BCS schools, there are in Rupp right now.

Yeah, I've heard that complaint too, which always sounded more reasonable to me due to the BCS's money advantage, etc.  But the "can't build a C-prestige BCS school" chant was, at least for a while there, loud and long.  The truth is, I don't think you should be able to build a mid-major into a perennial national powerhouse.  But the rise in BCS vacancies has been fast and alarming, leading me to believe there are many out there who do believe the Baylors of Rupp are lost causes.  Heck -- the ACC is half-empty and finished 10th(!) last year.  I guess I'm just curious whether this lost confidence in the ability to compete and grow against the A+ superpowers is founded or not.  Personally, I'm with you in thinking it's not.  But I might change my mind in 5 seasons :)

Even for a good-but-not-great coach, it's still possible.  Here's me at OK State:

49	cornfused	16-9	8-2	8-7	0-0	9-6		24	-
48	cornfused	9-19	4-7	4-11	1-1	4-12		95	B+
47	cornfused	17-14	6-5	8-7	3-2	7-9		32	B+	NT At-large Bid NT (2nd Round)
46	cornfused	18-10	8-2	10-6	0-2	9-7		37	B+	NT At-large Bid NT (1st Round)
45	cornfused	19-10	8-4	10-4	1-2	10-6		23	B	NT At-large Bid NT (1st Round)
44	cornfused	9-19	3-8	5-10	1-1	4-12		125	B
43	cornfused	26-6	10-1	12-3	4-2	12-4	9	6	B	Conf Champion NT At-large Bid NT (Sweet 16)
42	cornfused	11-16	7-8	4-7	0-1	6-10		134	C-
41	cornfused	9-18	4-9	5-8	0-1	2-14		167	C-
40	cornfused	7-20	6-9	1-10	0-1	3-13		264	C-
39	Sim AI	6-21	5-8	1-12	0-1	2-14		215	C-
38	Sim AI	3-24	3-8	0-15	0-1	2-14		266	C-
37	Sim AI	10-17	4-11	6-5	0-1	5-11		173	C

should be pretty easy, many d1 conferences I am in are routinely getting 6 plus teams in the post season and racking up 30-45k in post season funds.  This is real life conference RPI's for last season, compare to any d1 world, I think you will see the difference, in some worlds there is a .4 to .6 gap between the bcs's and everyone else, with several conferences at or above .600 - I guess you'll have to take my word for this, prior to the change, that was not the case ... anyhow - good luck with your project, if your conference mates are good, the only trick you need is to schedule ten sims and get 9 or 10 non conf wins, so you end up over 14 wins for the season, if you do that, you should make the nt every season from a bcs, not exactly what the change was supposed to do, was it?

Rank	Conference	Rating	Top Team	Last
1	Big East	0.577	Connecticut (32-9)	1
2	Big Ten	0.572	Ohio State (34-3)	2
3	Big 12	0.569	Kansas (35-3)	3
4	Mountain West	0.555	San Diego St (34-3)	4
5	ACC	0.554	Duke (32-5)	5
6	SEC	0.553	Kentucky (29-9)	6
7	Pac-10	0.549	Arizona (30-8)	7
8	CUSA	0.533	Memphis (25-10)	8
9	CAA	0.522	Old Dominion (27-7)	9
10	Atlantic 10	0.522	Xavier (24-8)	10
11	MVC	0.515	Wichita St (29-8)	11
12	Horizon League	0.513	Butler (28-10)	12
13	WAC	0.507	Utah State (30-4)	13
14	WCC	0.504	Gonzaga (25-10)	14
15	Ivy	0.495	Harvard (23-7)	15
16	MAAC	0.488	Iona (22-11)	16
17	Atlantic Sun	0.471	Belmont (30-5)	17
18	MAC	0.469	Kent State (25-12)	18
19	Northeast	0.469	LIU-Brooklyn (27-6)	19
20	Southern	0.469	Col Charlestn (26-11)	20
21	Summit	0.466	Oakland (25-10)	21
22	Big South	0.464	Coastal Car (28-6)	22
23	Sun Belt	0.462	Fla Atlantic (21-11)	23
24	Patriot	0.460	Bucknell (25-9)	24
25	Big West	0.460	Lg Beach St (22-12)	25
26	Big Sky	0.459	N Colorado (21-11)	26
27	Ohio Valley	0.459	Morehead St (25-10)	27
28	America East	0.457	Vermont (23-9)	28
29	Southland	0.451	McNeese St (21-12)	29
30	MEAC	0.429	Hampton (24-9)	30
31	Independents	0.414	Savannah St (12-18)	31
32	SWAC	0.408	TX Southern (19-13)	32
33	Great West	0.389	Utah Val St (19-11)	33

compare that to recently completed tark's top ten, I think you will see the 'gap' I described:

1.	ACC	.6246
2.	Big East	.6121
3.	Big 10	.5827
4.	Big 12	.5794
5.	SEC	.5639
6.	PAC 10	.5620
7.	MAC	.5027
8.	Ivy	.4930
9.	Sun Belt	.4911
10.	CUSA	.491

OR -- that's all definitely true, and an argument that the BCS's have become too powerful.  But isn't the big problem now the flight from the low-tier BCS schools?  Used to be 10 seasons ago there were 2-4 BCS openings per world, and they were hotly contested.  I remember biding my time in the CUSA, praying something in the BCS would open up so I could jump in, and hoping there weren't enough other qualified coaches to shut me out.  Now if you want a BCS school, there's about 15 for the taking.  I hear a lot of coaches going back to D2 because they feel the uphill climb to compete for an NC is too great in D1, that only a handful of teams year in and year out have a shot, and everyone else is spinning their wheels because the drop-off in skill between the top recruits that go to A/A+ schools and all the rest were too great.  Maybe I'm mistaken, and you have a much better sense of the zeitgeist of HD, but I was under the impression BCS flight/despair was a real problem these days due to the changes in recruit generation. 
Do you think that's not the case?

OR - I think this is misleading data.  I know that a lot of coaches feel very strongly that there is too great a talent gap and that mid-majors and low-majors simply can't compete.  I don't play D1, so I won't even try to speak to this.  However, trying to compare RL conference RPI data to HD RPI data is not a good proof of an issue.  The simple reason for this is that many, many BCS schools in HD schedule as many as 8-10 mid- and low-major opponents in their non-conference schedules to maximize both team and conference wins.  They are intentionally scheduling these winnable games against programs they don't think have a real shot to beat them.  This leads to higher RPIs for the BCS conferences and lower RPIs for the guys getting beat up on by the big boys.  In real life BCS teams play primarily other BCS teams and the elite mid-major programs in their non-conference schedules.

You compared to Tark.  In the interest of simplicity, I just looked up the top team from the top conference.  That, of course, is national champion Georgia Tech.  In their non-conference schedule, GT played Creighton, Colgate, N. Illinois, Albany, Loyola, Pepperdine, Grambling State, Chicago State, SE Missouri State, and Mt. St. Mary's.  Regardless of how cool Touchdown Mary may have been (it's gone now ), you'll never see Georgia Tech playing Mt. St. Mary's in real life.  Furthermore, since ALL of those schools were sim-coached, GT's coach was able to schedule all of it's non-conference games on the road.  This is also artificially inflating the school's RPI.  In real life on the rare occasions that the big boys DO play a weaker school, they make the weaker school come to them.  If anything, top programs in the real world play slightly home-weighted schedules.  Top programs in HD routinely play heavily road-weighted non-cons since they don't have to please an actual fan base, don't have to establish reciprocity, and are more concerned with getting high RPI numbers than real programs.

Posted by jeffdrayer on 6/6/2011 4:57:00 PM (view original):
OR -- that's all definitely true, and an argument that the BCS's have become too powerful.  But isn't the big problem now the flight from the low-tier BCS schools?  Used to be 10 seasons ago there were 2-4 BCS openings per world, and they were hotly contested.  I remember biding my time in the CUSA, praying something in the BCS would open up so I could jump in, and hoping there weren't enough other qualified coaches to shut me out.  Now if you want a BCS school, there's about 15 for the taking.  I hear a lot of coaches going back to D2 because they feel the uphill climb to compete for an NC is too great in D1, that only a handful of teams year in and year out have a shot, and everyone else is spinning their wheels because the drop-off in skill between the top recruits that go to A/A+ schools and all the rest were too great.  Maybe I'm mistaken, and you have a much better sense of the zeitgeist of HD, but I was under the impression BCS flight/despair was a real problem these days due to the changes in recruit generation. 
Do you think that's not the case?

Jeff - all of this is opinion, mine is coaches left because (I left one myself) teams that were able to get mid 600 level players who were ranked 40 now could only get hi 500 level players who were ranked 40, while the bcs team were getting 10th ranked guys who were rated in the high 600's, now were in the mid 700's - the change is staggering for the mid majors - I know this game pretty well, it really was true (for me at least).  

Now I will grant you, you (or I) could probably take over the 360th ranked d1 team and make the NT in two years, but compete for the NT title, not so much any longer.

Again, this is a big change in the game, which is why so many coaches left IMO - not even a right or wrong issue in terms of the ratings, simply a human issue, nothing in this game is more fun that getting a great recruit, the bottom line, fewer coaches are getting fewer great recruits, relative to what the BCS schools are getting & that is not so much fun - every once in a while someone will, but fewer coaches are getting fewer good ones, and it catches up with ind coaches, conferences, and entire worlds over time.  The RPI gap is an indication of what has happened to the game over time.

Posted by dahsdebater on 6/6/2011 5:00:00 PM (view original):
OR - I think this is misleading data.  I know that a lot of coaches feel very strongly that there is too great a talent gap and that mid-majors and low-majors simply can't compete.  I don't play D1, so I won't even try to speak to this.  However, trying to compare RL conference RPI data to HD RPI data is not a good proof of an issue.  The simple reason for this is that many, many BCS schools in HD schedule as many as 8-10 mid- and low-major opponents in their non-conference schedules to maximize both team and conference wins.  They are intentionally scheduling these winnable games against programs they don't think have a real shot to beat them.  This leads to higher RPIs for the BCS conferences and lower RPIs for the guys getting beat up on by the big boys.  In real life BCS teams play primarily other BCS teams and the elite mid-major programs in their non-conference schedules.

You compared to Tark.  In the interest of simplicity, I just looked up the top team from the top conference.  That, of course, is national champion Georgia Tech.  In their non-conference schedule, GT played Creighton, Colgate, N. Illinois, Albany, Loyola, Pepperdine, Grambling State, Chicago State, SE Missouri State, and Mt. St. Mary's.  Regardless of how cool Touchdown Mary may have been (it's gone now ), you'll never see Georgia Tech playing Mt. St. Mary's in real life.  Furthermore, since ALL of those schools were sim-coached, GT's coach was able to schedule all of it's non-conference games on the road.  This is also artificially inflating the school's RPI.  In real life on the rare occasions that the big boys DO play a weaker school, they make the weaker school come to them.  If anything, top programs in the real world play slightly home-weighted schedules.  Top programs in HD routinely play heavily road-weighted non-cons since they don't have to please an actual fan base, don't have to establish reciprocity, and are more concerned with getting high RPI numbers than real programs.

could be - I do see your point - really I do - but that does not explain why the whole thing changed when the new ratings scheme started - before that the RPI distribution was much closer to real life, and the scheduling issue you describe, has been going on since HCA was established as a part of the game.

"you'll never see Georgia Tech playing Mt. St. Mary's in real life"

Couldn't be more false of a statement.  Among Ga Tech's non-conference opponents in real-life last year were Charleston Southern, Kennesaw State, Niagara, Albany, Savannah State, and Mercer.

I have zero clue what you are talking about when you say that in real-life BCS teams play primarily BCS teams.  It simply isn't even close to being accurate.

Real life BCS teams absolutely do not mostly play other BCS teams

And if we are to use the example of national champs...well, then, UConn scheduled Stony Brook, Vermont, New Hampshire, UM-Baltimore County, Coppin State, and Harvard.

Ok, what I meant to say - or at least, what I was thinking - was that non-conference road games for BCS schools tend to be against BCS schools or against elite mid-major teams as part of a home-and-home.  You won't see the RPI-optimizing schedules of all road games against the best schools from the weakest conferences in the country.  They tend to be heavily weighted towards home games against relatively local low-major and mid-major teams with a few games that are part of the aforementioned home-and-homes against other top teams mixed in.

Yes, that's more accurate, Dahs. 

I know this would never happen, but it would be interesting if recruiting budget became tied into to how many home games you played, with some kind of a penalty for playing less than 1/2 your non-con at home.  That's the impediment to a real-life team gaming the RPI system like that...they need the receipts from the home games, they couldn't afford to pull that stunt.